How to Keep Earning a Salary While Transitioning Into a Role as a Product Manager

It’s not a secret that people who have started to master a new profession are often worried about their future salary. After graduation from different courses or universities, they mostly can just hope for a junior position, which means low salary. Often that salary is less than they had before. In this article I share my students’ experience on how to switch successfully to a product manager. This approach will be useful for different specializations. It’s highly recommended that you choose one and use it from the beginning of your studying. Here are 4 ideas on how not to lose wages and how to start earning more.

• Focus on your cup of tea During your study you will learn different methodologies and instruments. You can find one which you like most and train during your learning process. Choose what you like most: customer interview, CJM, business-model, competitive benchmarking, etc. and start practicing this instrument more than it is required by the training program. Prepare posts on social networks and messenger groups that you are searching for people who are in need of such help. Practice as much as you can during your study process and after graduation you will have an excellent portfolio. It is very beneficial to involve your colleagues or teammates in challenges with everyday training to motivate yourself. All you need after that is to find employees who need a product manager with such specialization. As an example, one of my students took a fancy to conduct a customer interview. She interviewed more than 250 customers while studying! 80% of her interviews were paid, so she had returned her investments in studying before she graduated. As a result, customer interviews became her side job.

  That’s one small step for a man. One giant leap for your career.

  
  

• Shoot for the moon Tell your boss about your ambition to become a product manager and ask them to give you a side product at your current work. Most managers respect initiative subordinates. If your boss doesn’t have any products for you, take pot luck and ask which business processes your company needs to improve or which KPI have to achieve. Internal products can be invented as a solution to different problems. Your company might face a problem with the process of coordinating staff’s vacations. This process involves too many people and sometimes people with similar roles go on holiday at the same time. It can be an ideal situation for you to show your worth and create a product which would solve the problem. In case of success — you will be promoted.

  “God helps those who help themselves”

  
  

• Take your baggage with you Don’t be afraid of losing your regular salary level because you need to start from the start, you still have a chance to bring home the bacon. It’s not necessary to disregard your previous experience and skills. Try to find a job in a new profession which is based on them. Maybe you have experience in construction of houses as a foreman. So you know a lot about different processes in construction, specific things and roles of people who are involved in those processes, etc. As an idea, you can find a vacancy for product managers in a company or startup which creates IT products for construction companies. Your previous experience with basic product skills will be demanded more than senior product manager skills without such background.

  Failures add to experience

  
  

• Work way through school Find and join somebody’s product for free or create your own pet product. People often think that it’s hard to come up with an idea about a new product or find like-minded people. Here is some simple advice on how to find a product for joining.

  • Prepare a post on different social networks about your wish to join some side product as a product manager for free. Describe your strongest skills in a few words. Example: “Hi all! As I am studying to be a product manager, I want to help you with your commercial, social or hobby product. I have good analytical skills and get on with people very well, so it can be beneficial for you to conduct customer interviews and to do market analysis and competitor research”.

  • Find groups in different social networks for founders, who are looking for co-founders and post your offer there. (Don’t forget to read the rules of the group and contact the moderator). You can also visit meetups or network events. It’s easy to find such meetings in google search or in aggregators like https://www.f6s.com/events

  • Take part in a hackathon. It’s one of the most exciting and useful experiences you can find. A hackathon is a sprint-like design event where computer programmers, product managers and others are involved in software development and other collaborative activities and projects. The goal of a hackathon is to create functioning software or hardware within 24h or 48h before the event ends. More than a hundred hackathons start every month in different countries.

  • Become a volunteer in a startup accelerator, product society or something similar. There are many events where organizations are in need of labor as budgets are very limited. Joining in as a volunteer won’t earn you money, but it will bring you a new network and opportunities. Also, it’s a good chance to adopt best practices from your more experienced colleges.

  • Find a group of people who have the same hobby as you and ask them what they need. For example, you are a fan of the board game “Magic the gathering”, and you find a programmer who also likes “Magic”. Together, you can create a small app for scanning and organizing your collection of cards or a Life counter app. Or you both are a fan of fishing, so why not develop a web-site or an app for anglers? Add to your app advice on where to fish in your region, what kind of fish can be caught there and what bait is better to use. Remember — you don’t need to invent a new “Uber” or “Facebook”, you just need to have some real practice.

    “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm”